This welcome issue brings together for the 1st time on disc all the works by the great Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) for solo piano, piano 4-hands or 2 pianos. CD 1 covers the weightier solo pieces, not only the '8 Preludes,' the 'Fantasy on Flamenco Rhythms' and 'Guitare' (a transcription of the '8 Short Pieces' for guitar), but 3 shorter works, all excellent. CD 2 is generally lighter in tone, leading off with a sparkling version ……Highly recommended.

Nikolay Medtner’s 14 piano sonatas are considered the most significant achievement in this genre by any composer since Beethoven. After the success of his First Piano Sonata (GP617) he turned to Goethe for inspiration, and the life and love-affirming Sonata-Triad Op. 11 translates the poet’s words of passion, suffering and redemption into sound. The capricious, mysterious and beautiful Sonata-Skazka is a masterpiece in miniature and was once Medtner’s most performed work. Dating from his years of exile, the eloquent themes of the fourteenth and final Sonata-Idyll linger long in the memory.

Although he is best remembered for his orchestral and instrumental music, Saint-Saens was also responsible for spearheading the revival of the French Baroque, especially the music of Lully and Rameau, as well as being perfectly placed to absorb the latest instrumental dance music. His five 'character waltzes' include the ethereal and ravishingly textured Valse mignonne, the stylistically forward-looking Valse nonchalante and teh virtuosic Valse gaie, the composer's final waltz for solo piano, while the three minor key Mazurkas are strongly characterised and filled with ingeious musical contrasts. Last but not least, the three 'souvenirs' are delightful evocations of particular corners of the world that inspired Saint-Saens.

"You absolutely must hear him, this boy plays like a devil.” - Aribert Reimann to David Levine (1986, during his visit to Ankara) With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Turkish pianist Fazıl Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised classical music world.

A real rarity from Hyperion's Anglo-Australian artistic collaboration: music by an Australian composer who was once at the heart of the English establishment. Malcolm Williamson was one of many Australian creative artists who relocated to Britain in the mid-twentieth century. This double-album set of the complete Piano Concertos is therefore an important document as well as a compendium of deeply appealing music. Williamson wrote with a generosity of emotion and melodic flair rare in the mid-twentieth century, in a forward-looking idiom. Piers Lane, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Howard Shelley are the ideal performers of these unjustly neglected works.

Russian by birth, later American by choice, Boris Berman has achieved an important place among contemporary pianists in both the music of his native country and the works of other 20th century composers. Prokofiev and Berman - a potent combination readily apparent to anyone who has been following Berman's recordings of the complete keyboard works for Chandos… With a cool head, a warm heart, and lapidary precision, Berman defined the essential character of each score, impeccably integrating all the important musical gestures into a satisfying total picture…for a grand tour through the total Prokofiev, I can't imagine a more observant or articulate guide. –New York Magazine

In 2002 Simon Smith made his recording debut on Delphian in a disc of James MacMillans complete piano music, paired with Stuart MacRaes Piano Sonata. Recordings of music by Hafliði Hallgrímsson and Thomas Wilson have followed. In this new, substantial outing Smith turns from music-making in Scotland to another of his lifelong loves, the music of Alfred Schnittke. This two-disc set comprises Schnittkes entire published output for solo piano (including one piece for piano duet and another for six hands at one keyboard). The Russian composers music often makes gargantuan demands of the player. Smiths astonishing dynamic palette and heartfelt musicality combine here to stunning effect.

The complete piano works of French perfectionist composer Paul Dukas mirror two very different masterpieces, one French- inspired (Variations) and the other of Germanic inspiration (Sonata). The Sonata is distinguished by its structure, grandeur and magnificence of tone. A disciple of Gabriel Tacchino, Jean-Claude Pennetier and Gyorgy Sebok, Olivier Chauzu (b. 1963) was trained in the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris at the end of the 1980s. He tours France and the world playing as a soloist and in chamber music.